The January 23 Trifecta

Periodically since mid-March 2014, I've scanned the blog posts I published three and four years ago on the same date to see what might have shifted over the ensuing years. The readers who've joined me on this adventure - reviewing their three and four year old journal entries, etc. - have shared some intriguing observations with me. Thanks to those folks. Now I've got one for you.

My posts for January 23 2012 and 2013 - links are at the bottom - are both about a new friend I made in 2010, although I had no inkling of this coincidence until a few hours ago. But it gets more eerie considering my original idea for today's post was to write about a dark novel called "Eileen", the selection for a book club of two that is meeting for just the third time next week. Guess who the other person is in that club? If it turns out January 23 is her birthday, I'm going to play 123 in the lottery and I've never bought a lottery ticket.

Now, about Ottessa Moshfegh's book. Like happy endings? Not the book for you. Want to relate to characters? Read this 2015 debut novel only if you're deeply dysfunctional. Enjoy luxuriating in rich prose and blacker than coal humor? Try this - "When he was alone, he had an ominous kind of stillness, like a slingshot being pulled back too hard." And this - "His smile perturbed me. He looked like a man who would fondle chicken." Or, marvel with an author nailing the essence of her protagonist like so: "It was a brief vacation from the loud, rabid inner circuitry of my mind."

See why I titled my January 23 2013 post "A Reader To Rely On"? She picked this off-center winner.

http://reflectionsfromthebellcurve.blogspot.com/2012/01/first-impressions-books-their-people.html

http://reflectionsfromthebellcurve.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-reader-to-rely-on.html